To the left, to the left
Everything you own in the box to the left
In the closet, that’s my stuff, yes
If I bought it, please don’t touch . . . 

Queen Bey’s wisdom doesn’t only apply to romantic breakups. When you end a relationship with your digital marketing agency, you should get everything you bought handed back to you in that box. But that happens less often than you’d think.

Today, I’ll walk you through how to break up with your automotive marketing agency and get your stuff back in the process.

Secure These 5 Assets Before Leaving an Agency

So you’re changing your digital marketing provider. Maybe you’re making the move for budget reasons, or maybe you weren’t satisfied with the results you were getting. [If you want tips on questions to ask potential agencies, check out this post on marketing agency research.]

Before you officially end your contract with your current agency, it’s vital you get your assets under control.

As we start working with new clients at 9 Clouds, we often find that auto dealers aren’t given access to their own information when leaving a prior agency. In our opinion, this isn’t fair. Your dealership is spending good money on marketing, and all the resulting data should be available to you, even after the relationship is done.

Here are the five assets we recommend you secure before moving on to a new partnership:

1. Google Ads (formerly known as AdWords): Depending on where your Google Ads were built, they can be transferred in two different ways:
   1. If the account belonged to you before working together, make sure the marketing agency promotes your access to full administrator. You can then remove the agency when your work together is done.
   2. If the account was built by the agency for you, request they export the keywords as an AEA backup file, which you can then manually import yourself or provide to your next agency as a building block for future campaigns.
2. Facebook: Again, there are two main ways to transfer your Facebook ads:
   1. If the agency is a partner on your own ad account and pages, they can simply remove their access at the end of your contract, leaving your Business Manager as the owner. (9 Clouds’ policy is to add our team as a partner to new clients’ existing ad accounts and pages — and you should advocate for any agency you work with to do the same.)
   2. If the agency built these Facebook assets for you, request an export of the data for all future marketing comparisons.
3. Historical reports: You’ll probably have copies of past marketing reports in your inbox, but you should request a full copy of any historical reporting from the time you started working with the agency.
4. Working files or unfinished content: This one gets missed a lot, but please get copies of any working files or unfinished content the agency had in progress. You paid for the content, after all; even if it’s unfinished, you could put the final touches on it before launching it yourself later.
5. Training: If you’re planning to take your marketing in-house rather than hire a new agency, this request is especially important. Hopefully, you’ve gained insight and education from your marketing partner throughout your work together, but ask for specific training on the areas by which you feel most challenged.

Based on your contract, there are other pieces you might request, like Bing or LinkedIn campaign results or a guarantee that specific data is removed from the agency’s databases.

No matter what, do your best to leave your marketing agency feeling confident that you have all the assets you need for future success. [Need help? Read our three steps to successfully ending client relationships.]

Find the Best Marketing Agency Fit

Are you searching for a new marketing team right now? Take a look at 9 Clouds and the work we do.

If you think we could work together, request a marketing assessment. Matt will take a look at your current marketing and provide areas of recommendation for the future (which you can do yourself or have us do for you!).